Multi-column lists with jQuery, an alternative method

Submitted by Christian on Fri, 08/22/2008 - 5:45pm

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So I needed a method to take a long, nested list and turning it into a compact, multiple acolumn list, in order to display it as sort of a site map for the home page for a site I'm working on.

Being a huge fan of jQuery, it was naturally my go-to library of choice.

Scanning the plugins site, I found a possible solution from a feller called Ingo Schommer called columnizeList.

Score, right? Well... not exactly, at least for my case.

Ingo used some of the methodoligies outlined in this article on multi-column lists on A List Apart. One of the caveats of his methodology is that each list item has to be the same height. This works Ok for a lot of use cases, but since I'm using a Drupal menu as the source for the list, it could contain arbitrary text I don't control.

So, I started from scratch. Instead of relying on consistent line heights, and applying different margin settings to list elements, I instead decided to decompose the large source list into several smaller lists (one for each column) and then use a css float parameter to make them all appear side-by-side.

Here's a sample list for a demonstration, cribbed from Ingo's example:

harold (3550)
horatio (1320)
hitler (1120)
henry (784)
hector (358)
haploid (315)
hopping (50)
herbert mulroney (44)
hopscotching (29)
hominibus (19)
honkey (19)
hermoine (18)
hieronymus (13)
halliburton (12)
hummer (10)
harlod (10)
heironymious (9)
hemorrhoids (7)
hammersack (6)

(apparently a list of the most common fillers for the middle initial in Jesus H. Christ)

Anyway, here's what my script does to the above list:

harold (3550)
horatio (1320)
hitler (1120)
henry (784)
hector (358)
haploid (315)
hopping (50)
herbert mulroney (44)
hopscotching (29)
hominibus (19)
honkey (19)
hermoine (18)
hieronymus (13)
halliburton (12)
hummer (10)
harlod (10)
heironymious (9)
hemorrhoids (7)
hammersack (6)

And here's the code:

/*
Copyright (c) 2007 Christian yates
christianyates.com
chris [at] christianyates [dot] com
Licensed under the MIT License: 
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php
 
Inspired by work of Ingo Schommer
http://chillu.com/2007/9/30/jquery-columnizelist-plugin
*/
(function($){
  $.fn.columnizeList = function(settings){
    settings = $.extend({
      cols: 3,
      constrainWidth: 0
    }, settings);
    // var type=this.getNodeType();
    var container = this;
    if (container.length == 0) { return; }
    var prevColNum = 10000; // Start high to avoid appending to the wrong column
    var size = $('li',this).size();
    var percol = Math.ceil(size/settings.cols);
    var tag = container[0].tagName.toLowerCase();
    var classN = container[0].className;
    var colwidth = Math.floor($(container).width()/settings.cols);
    var maxheight = 0;
    // Prevent stomping on existing ids with pseudo-random string
    var rand = Math.floor(Math.random().toPrecision(6)*10e6);
    $('<ul id="container'+rand+'" class="'+classN+'"></ul>').css({width:$(container).width()+'px'}).insertBefore(container);
    $('li',this).each(function(i) {
      var currentColNum = Math.floor(i/percol);
      if(prevColNum != currentColNum) {
        if ($("#col" + rand + "-" + prevColNum).height() > maxheight) { maxheight = $("#col" + rand + "-" + prevColNum).height(); }
        $("#container"+rand).append('<li class="list-column-processed"><'+tag+' id="col'+rand+'-'+currentColNum+'"></'+tag+'></li>');
      }
      $(this).attr("value",i+1).appendTo("#col"+rand+'-'+currentColNum);
      prevColNum = currentColNum;
    });
    $("li.list-column-processed").css({
      'float':'left',
      'list-style':'none',
      'margin':0,
      'padding':0
    });
    if (settings.constrainWidth) {
      $(".list-column-processed").css({'width':colwidth + "px"});
    };
    $("#container"+rand).after('<div style="clear: both;"></div>');
    $("#container"+rand+" "+tag).height(maxheight);
    // Add CSS to columns
    this.remove();        
    return this;
  };
})(jQuery);

Download

There are only two parameters - cols, the number of columns to break the list into, and constrainWidth a boolean (defaulting to false) to specify whether you want all columns to be the same width.

I've tested with IE 6&7, FF3, Safari3 and Opera 9.something (for the three Opera users on the planet). The code could use a bit of refactoring perhaps for the purpose of beautification.

Update: I've added this to the jQuery Plugin site.

Christian's blog

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Fri, 08/22/2008 - 10:02pm

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Multi-column lists with jQuery, an alternative method

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